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Monday, May 3, 2010

#26 THE OTHER LIFE (REVISED)

Dear Secret Agent,Sherry can't remember the feel of sun on her skin nor the smell of freshly cut grass. 1,139 days since she saw the sky. 27,336 hours since she heard her friends' ceaseless chatter. Countless minutes since the mutated rabies forced Sherry and her family into the shelter beneath their house.

Only two minutes since they ran out of food.And with every minute passing by, the clicking of her Grandma's knitting needles feels more like the countdown to their doom. Time is running out.Click. Click.Sherry and her family face the choice of starving in their bunker - a place that feels more like a prison than a home - or leaving the walls keeping them safe. When her father goes out to search for food, Sherry doesn't hesitate to accompany him. She won't become the second corpse in their freezer, thank you very much. Soon she realizes getting infected with the rabies isn't their main problem. Mutants neither human nor animal prowl the streets. During an attack they carry her father off. Sherry would have shared his fate, had it not been for Joshua, another survivor. Now, she is hell bent on rescuing her father with his help.A dangerous quest. All their lives are at stake. Saving her father and making sure that Joshua's thirst for revenge doesn't get him killed pose a seemingly insurmountable challenge for Sherry. And their situation gets only worse when they find out a fence has been built to keep the mutants, but also every survivor on the West Coast, from setting foot on the other side – the new territory of the USA. Their government has forgotten about them and apparently has every intent of keeping it that way.THE OTHER LIFE, my YA post-apocalyptic novel, is complete at 56,000 words.Thank you for your time and consideration.***3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I'd seen daylight.

Almost one-fifth of my life.

“We're running out of food,” Dad said as he rummaged through our pantry. His forehead was creased in worry and there was this expression on his face that didn't bode well. I'd seen it countless times lately.

Please not another fight.

Mom looked up from the floor in our improvised kitchen and stopped mopping. Her unwashed, blond hair hung limply down her shoulders and back. “What are you talking about? We should have food for at least eight months left.” She wiped her hands on her flowery apron – exactly eighty-nine flowers, I'd counted them several times. And they were hideous flowers, let me tell you.

She stepped into the pantry.

Here it comes.

I stifled a sigh and tried to ignore them. As if that was possible! They didn't even try to be silent most of the times.

1139 days since I'd heard the chatter of my friends, since I'd seen the sky.

Her hands on her hips, Mom glared at Dad, her brows creating a solid line in her rising anger. “We've stocked food for four years. You said so yourself.”

Dad sighed as he slumped against one of the shelves in the pantry, running a hand through his short, red hair. “We must have calculated the rations wrongly. Maybe we ate more than we should have.”

It always began like that: accusations and denial followed by screaming, then crying.